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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. All right, we just heard about retirees in revolt in New York, and now we turn to France where protests against raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 have really boiled over this week. After surviving two votes of no-confidence over his controversial plan, President Emmanuel Macron jammed through the measure in what his critics are calling an anti-democratic move, so reminiscent of what we just heard about the unions and how they are run in New York.

In cities around the country of France, protesters are clashing with riot police this week, it's come to that. Macron does not appear to be standing down. Speaking in a televised interview yesterday, Macron stood firm and unapologetic about his position of the protesters. He added, "When groups, as they have this week, use violence without any rules because they are not happy with something, then that is no longer democracy. Who's calling who undemocratic?"

Joining me now to break down what's going on and what comes next is Roger Cohen, Paris bureau chief for The New York Times and author of several books, most recently, An Affirming Flame: Meditations on Life and Politics. Roger, it's always good to have you on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Roger Cohen: Thank you, Brian. Good to be with you.

Brian Lehrer: As you summed it up in a recent article, Macron rammed the overhaul through Parliament last week, had two failed no-confidence votes. In other words, they did vote to keep him. All of this has induced mayhem on the streets. Is the 62-64-year-old retirement age- sorry, I said it right, 62-64-year-old retirement age increase, a done deal?

Roger Cohen: Well, it's not completely a done deal in that it's being challenged by his opponents in the constitutional court. Effectively, yes, President Macron has secured this increase in the retirement age to 64, which brings France closer to its European neighbors and that he believes is essential for France's future economic stability. There are more and more retirees in the French system. Their pensions are paid for by the contributions of active workers. The ratio of those workers to the retirees is going down. He views it as essential.

The thing is that the French are fiercely attached to their retirement age of 62. President Macron has not, very effectively, made his case and this has escalated over the last couple of months with now nine days of protests, demonstrations, strikes, which are becoming more violent of late. Today again, as garbage piles up in the streets of Paris because the garbage collectors are on strike, again, there are clashes around the country and the mood is very ugly.

Brian Lehrer: Can you explain to a US audience what we mean by retirement age in the context of France? Because in this country, we think of 65 as the retirement age. That's when you can get on Social Security. That's when you can get what they call full Social Security benefits, though not your maximum Social Security benefits which kick in later. Mostly when you can retire depends on when you can afford to retire in the context of the United States. Is it different than that in France?

Roger Cohen: Well, in France, under the current system, if you've worked for a sufficient number of years, then at 62 you can collect your full state pension which normally amounts to about 75% of your last salary. It averages out at maybe $1,800 a month or something, $1,700 a month.

Brian Lehrer: Can I stop you right on that point for a second? Because I think in the US, Social Security does not approach 75% of your last salary as a worker. The stakes are higher in France, with its pension system. Would that be fair to say?

Roger Cohen: Yes, the stakes are higher. There's also a different attitude to work. I think work in the United States, Brian, is generally a positive word. We, Americans, are a can-do nation and we think that the way to get things done is to work hard. Also, American capitalism is more creative maybe than French. The French version is harsher. You're better off poor in France than you are in the United States. There's a degree of social protection that you don't get in the US. The French are fiercely attached to that.

Part of the issue in this reform is that the French see something broader. They see an attack on their identity, on the social solidarity of one generation toward another that they feel is critical for a healthy society. They see it broadly as an attack by Macron on their way of life. That said, there are many people in the very dynamic French private sector and in the French middle class, and among wealthier French people, who absolutely see the rationale that President Macron has set out.

The math over the medium term just doesn't work out. The problem may not be immediate, but it is coming down the tracks. He, as he said yesterday, feels his responsibility of the French people even if he's-- He said, "If I have to be unpopular, I'm going to shoulder that unpopularity." He is right now very unpopular. He's isolated. He's been perceived as aloof and distant through this whole saga. The fact that having said he will not do it or do everything not to do it, the fact that he used this constitutional measure to ram a very controversial reform through the parliament, that has all added to the ugly mood I described.

Brian Lehrer: We talked in our last segment about retirees' healthcare in New York, about the reality of the fact that there is healthcare inflation, not to mention the fact that people are living longer, and the birth rates in both our countries are relatively low compared to the past. There are a lot of retirees and it costs money to give them the retiree benefits. What are the economics of this?

Roger Cohen: Well, President Macron's point is that the economics of this do not work, and that there's a war in Europe and France has to invest heavily in defense. The war is probably going to go on for quite a while and Russia's hostility to Western Europe is not going to go away tomorrow. He wants to invest massively in moving to green energy, in education. He argues that this reform is essential and there's no way around it.

Unfortunately, consistently, polls have shown that two thirds of French people oppose the measure. He has not met with labor union leaders, he has not really negotiated. Yesterday in his interview on TV, he was intransigent. He said, "Look, we have to do this." The question today, Brian, is how much staying power do the protesters have? The government is worried that this is going to degenerate again into something like the Yellow Vest Movement, which I'm sure you'll recall, which started in 2018 and went on into 2019, which was pretty violent, became pretty violent.

Is France going to move in that direction in the coming weeks, or is the energy gradually going to go out, of the protests, now that the measure, the reform has been adopted? That's an open question right now.

Brian Lehrer: Well, are protest leaders proposing any alternative plan to afford France's social safety net over the coming decades?

Roger Cohen: They are saying that they want to talk to President Macron. There's a more left wing union and then there's a moderate union headed by somebody called Laurent Berger. He actually supported Macron in 2019 when he tried this pension reform once before but on a different model, not raising the retirement age, but allowing personal contribution, something a bit more like an American system and you would acquire points for the amount you contributed.

Berger supported that. This time around, he opposes what Macron wants and seems to have secured. The striking thing about this is the dearth of any real negotiation. It's just been a head-on confrontation. If you looked at Paris today, at night, there are these burning aisles of garbage, even on pretty [unintelligible 00:10:09] and affluent streets in the 8th arrondissement or the 16th arrondissement. There are mountains of garbage sometimes going up to the second-floor level. It's been cold, fortunately, but now the temperature is warming up and this could become pretty ugly very soon.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners-

Roger Cohen: Also today in cities like say-

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead, Roger.

Roger Cohen: -Rennes, other cities around the country, there are clashes, there are refineries that have shut down and you're beginning to see shortages at gas stations. It doesn't look good for the moment.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners with ties to France, we can take your phone calls on this, 212433-WNYC. What do you think Americans should know about the retirement age protests escalating to some violent clashes over raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 in France and against President Emmanuel Macron? We have the Paris bureau chief for The New York Times, Roger Cohen, 212433-WNYC, 2124339692, or Tweet @BrianLehrer.

I want to ask you about some strange bedfellow politics around this as I understand it. You wrote, "While the extreme right National Rally Party of Marine Le Pen and the far left led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon hold considerable power in the National Assembly or Lower House. They agree on very little except the need to prevent the pension overhaul." Why is this an issue for the right as well as the left?

Roger Cohen: Marine Le Pen whose National Rally, as you know, has grown in popularity to the point that she got over 40% of the vote in the last election. President Macron's great fear is that this is his last term, he's term-limited. He's very fearful that Le Pen could succeed him and then he will be remembered for being the last centrist president before the nationalist xenophobic extreme right took over.

Le Pen's support is quite largely among blue-collar and working-class French people who feel alienated. Much like in the US, there is a very stark division between the cities, the metropolis, and what the French call la périphérie, the periphery. In the so-called periphery where hospitals have been closing and smaller railway stations are shutting down and people feel they're ignored, there is a lot of anger. That anger tends to seek scapegoats i.e. immigrants.

Marine Le Pen's support has grown as a result of these trends in French society. There's an overlap between her support and then others, again, generally or quite often, among poorer French people who are drawn to the far left and Mélenchon who are not, absolutely not, in the same extreme nationalist xenophobic camp as Le Pen. They differ on a lot of fundamentals but they agree, and they agree vehemently, that the retirement age should not be raised to 64. Indeed, in the last election, Le Pen was proposing lowering the retirement age to 60.

There was this segment in their last debate where Le Pen described raising retirement age in France as an "unbearable injustice" that would leave French people retiring at a moment in their lives "when they were no longer able to enjoy it." As if a 64-year-old French citizen would no longer have the physical or mental capacity to enjoy life, which seemed, on the face of it, to be a pretty far-fetched proposition. That is what she was saying, and there are very strong feelings about this.

If I have time, Brian, just briefly, there's another aspect of this, which is a general and growing distrust with the way French democracy, in the Fifth Republic, functions. 44% of French people say they have no trust, none, in their democratic institutions. The equivalent number in Germany is 18%, 1-8. The French constitution was designed by the goal, in 1958, to have, essentially, a very, very strong presidency. The checks and balances are not so strong. The President is not all-powerful but not that from it.

There's growing disquiet with this, especially as Macron having promised to govern through Yellow Vest Movement, listening to people and being less top-down, seems to have reverted to character [unintelligible 00:15:56] and has assumed, again, this aloofness that is driving many French people to paroxysms of anger.

Brian Lehrer: This is WNYC FM HDNAM, New York, WNJT-FM 88.1, Trenton, WNJP 88.5, Sussex, WNJY 89.3, Netcong, and WNJO 90.3, Toms River. We are a New York and New Jersey Public Radio and live streaming at wnyc.org. A few more minutes with Roger Cohen, Paris bureau chief for The New York Times as we talk about the popular unrest spreading in that country over the plan to increase the retirement age from 62 to 64. Ashio in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hello, Ashio.

Ashio: Hi. How's it going? Thanks for having me, Brian. Longtime listener, first-time caller. I just wanted to point out, I live in Brooklyn. I've been there for the past six years. I am from France and coming from a quite reasonable background, lower middle class. I just want to point out these reforms, we got to know the double standards around that, and who is it profitable to, and who is concerned about it in this case.

We're not talking about every single French worker pushing retirement for two extra years. We're talking about more lower class of people, the hard workers that are more blue collars, and stuff like that. It's not people that are involved in the international economic dispute, as Macron tries to point out. It's more, internally, people that already struggle with their work, do physical stuff, and things like that, that end up being, once more, pushed away and have to do more when conditions are not as they should be in the first place.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Thank you for making that point. Roger, are there exceptions for certain types of jobs that might have been more manually strenuous?

Roger Cohen: Yes, the government has made some concessions to take account of that in terms of the amount of time it has to be worked to get a full pension. Yes, absolutely, as that caller said, it affects people, like the garbage collectors, who do hard physical labor and production line workers, and so on. All the state employees, the functionaries, as they're called in France, they're not doing hard physical labor in general, but they are directly affected by this law. A lot of the teachers today were on strikes. A lot of schools were closed. It's a very broad movement.

I would say in the six years he's been in office, I don't think Macron has ever been this isolated. I don't believe it for a moment, but some people are speculating, I think he likes the job he has, but there's been speculation that he could resign. I do not believe that's going to happen, but if people even discuss it, it is a measure of how he seems to have boxed himself into a corner right now.

As it happens, King Charles III is making his first overseas state visit to France, arriving on Sunday. Macron was going to have dinner with King Charles at Versailles on Monday. The optics of this, obviously in the current situation, were not so great. The government has said today that the dinner it seems is being moved elsewhere.

Brian Lehrer: Such a grassroots populist figure himself, King Charles. [chuckles] I hear you when you say Macron is so isolated. In this country, as you know, you can't get two thirds of the population to agree on just about anything, two thirds you're telling us, suppose this increase in the retirement age that Macron forced through anyway. Margot in Hudson Heights, you're on WNYC. Hi, Margot.

Margot: Hi and thanks for taking my call. I enjoy your broadcast so much.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Margot: I'm a New-Yorker. I'm from an American and French family. I grew up in Paris and then moved to New York City fully in the '80s, the best and the worst time. What I wanted to say is that what you call benefits here in this country, in French it's called social rights, droits sociaux. They matter to people because they've been obtained not by a kind lovely negotiation around a cup of coffee or drink or French wine. They've been obtained through deadly fights and oppression and protests. This has been a bloody war, not a gift from the top to the bottom.

People were raised in the belief that those were their rights. They fought for them like the French Revolution did. Once you have a right, whatever it is, you have to understand that it's not easy to let it go.

Brian Lehrer: I do understand, Margot, that this would gradually take effect. Somebody who's 61 today is not suddenly going to have to work to 64 if they were thinking they would be able to retire at 62. Does that change what you just said about expectations?

Margot: No, because even a child in first grade knows that it's through social rights, and they would be as reluctant to give up their social rights as a 61-year-old. You grew up in a country where you were talking about [unintelligible 00:22:27] the things obtained by your fathers and grandfathers and that starts in the crib.

Brian Lehrer: Margot, thank you very much. I want to relate that, Roger, to something that you wrote, "The President Macron has taken on something much bigger than the retirement age, the nation's deep attachment to social solidarity." I think that's part of what Margot is referring to. We looked at some other examples that Americans may not know.

France is famous for its 35-hour work week. In 2017, it pioneered law that granted workers the right to ignore work communications outside of working hours. Also employers can't just fire an employee at will as easily. There's a process that can take months. This is the context of the French mindset toward work in the first place, right?

Roger Cohen: Look, there are a lot of French people who work extremely hard. This should not be caricature in any way, but I think what Margot said is very important and she's right. In France, people talk of les acquis. Les acquis is precisely what she was saying, it's what you've acquired. Once you've acquired something, you're not going to give it up or you don't want to give it up.

There is this different sense in France, as compared to United States, of the importance of that [French language], let's call it solidarity, that is central to French society, this conviction of the equal humanity and dignity of every French citizen, however much money they may happen to have in the bank. Now, is there racism in France? Are there areas of Lyon and the outskirts of Lyon and Paris that are scarcely a monument to that kind of solidarity? Absolutely there are.

Brian, there's a reason why you can't get a shoe shine in France. You can't get a shoe shine because the idea, to a French person, of somebody at your feet cleaning your shoes is simply unacceptable. Now, you can get a shoe shine every block in New York, nobody really thinks about it. It's a small example, but it strikes me because.

Also, for example, if you address somebody, suppose you want to find directions to somewhere and you stop someone in the street and you say, "Excuse me. Can you tell me the way to [unintelligible 00:25:20] or whatever?" They will stop. They will look you in the eye and they will say, "Bonjour, monsieur, good morning, sir or bonjour, madame." You then are invited to say, "Bonjour monsieur, bonjour Madame," back to them before you pose the question.

What is that little greeting about? It's about the same thing, the humanity, the human dignity of each individual human being. Is it a flawed system? Yes, it is. That is a spirit that, I think, in France, differs from the American spirit, which is, you want to be free? Yes, I want to be free. You want to be free, you work hard, you make money and you secure your freedom, a greater freedom. Constitution hopefully gives us that freedom and our system of governance, but they're two different models.

Brian Lehrer: I want to be free to infect my neighbor with a deadly virus in the middle of the pandemic so I don't have to wear a mask.

Roger Cohen: For example, yes.

Brian Lehrer: Just to take a random example. We're out of time, but unrelated, but perhaps related, I do want to mention that you've got a new book out, An Affirming Flame: Meditations on Life and Politics. Some of our listeners know-

Roger Cohen: There's plenty of meditations on France, isn't it?

Brian Lehrer: Yes, from 2009 to 2020, you were a New York Times columnist, and this book I see is an anthology of those columns. You want to give you book a quick plug?

Roger Cohen: Oh, that's very kind of you, Brian. There's an introductory essay, 65-page essay on our times and on journalism, which I've practiced for several decades now and, to some degree, on my life. It's a difficult age we're living through.

It's an age of undoing, of assumptions about liberal democracy and the way it would spread across the world. The return of war to Europe, the return of serious discussion of nuclear war, even if it remains a remote possibility, and the rise of autocratic systems and the kind of nationalist, xenophobic movements that Madame Le Pen represents in France and the fracture of our societies by the French or American between those who feel alienated often in the heartland and have a different value system from those in the cities. That's happening too in France to some degree.

I try to delve into the reasons for this and to look at all the changes in journalism where the heart of the matter, boots on the ground, holding power to account, trying to evoke as vividly and clearly and fairly as possible, what we encounter as journalists, remains the same, but everything else-- I studied out filing by telex from Beirut, so it's a different world. Most people don't even know what telex is these days. It's a different world and it's an attempt, my essay, to sum up what I think is important.

An affirming flame refers to the last line of W. H. Auden's poem September, 1939 on the eve of World War II, when he sees the world sinking into cataclysmic disaster and refers to the few people or the people around the world holding a light to this darkness, an affirming flame. We need to persist in hope even when it's difficult.

Brian Lehrer: Author of An Affirming Flame: Meditations on Life and Politics and The New York Times Paris bureau chief, Roger Cohen. Roger, thanks so much for coming on.

Roger Cohen: Thank you so much Brian.

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